An Insight into the Proton Ultimate’s Specifications

An article published back in year 2000 by Australian motoring website drive.com.au gives us indications as to what kind of specifications the Proton Ultimate will have.

It’s said that the Proton Ultimate will be based on the Lotus M250 Coupe. Sadly the M250 did not make it to the production lines. Maybe it has a second chance in this project?

The Lotus M250 Concept

Proton has confirmed that the car, which has been codenamed Proton Ultimate, will ride on a modified version of the super-strong but lightweight, all-aluminium Monaco chassis developed by the British car maker.

This chassis will first be used as the basis for the new Lotus flagship M250 coupe, which goes on sale next year. The M250, which will come with V6 power, effectively replaces the almost 30-year-old Esprit.

We’ve seen the M250 coupe’s dashboard and it’s evident that the Gen2’s interior takes several design cues from the M250 dashboard.

The new model is being developed at a $160 million research and development centre at Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur.

In order to keep the price down at this early stage, indications are that the car could cost between $40,000 and $50,000 the Ultimate will share components common to other Protons.

$40,000 to $50,000 Australian Dollars? That’s about RM150,000 here in Malaysia. I bet alot of people will not be used to pay this sum of money for a Malaysian make even if it’s a Lotus OEM. Trust is just not there.

Power will come from new four-cylinder and V6 engines. The four-cylinder powerplant will displace 2.0-litres and will be developed with Proton shareholder, Petronas, and will utilise technological knowhow gleaned from the oil companys involvement with Sauber in Formula One. The Sauber team uses a version of the Ferrari V10 powerplant.

The V6 engine, which promises to develop about 150kW, is a revised version of the KV6 Rover engine. It is expected to have a displacement of 2.5-litres. The Ultimate is not the first collaboration between Lotus and Proton, with the British car maker helping to develop the Satria GTi.

Now this is interesting. I’ve read up on the specifications of the Petronas E01 and it’s very very impressive. It was tested in a Proton Waja. Bet the Waja can fly. Comparable to Honda’s K20A. But with Proton’s Campro now we can’t say if Proton will still go for the Petronas powerplant.

Let’s just see what happens to this project. This article was back in year 2000 and plans could have changed. It’s alraedy mid-2005 now and Proton hasn’t even gotten it’s SRM and TRM models out yet.

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.